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Android has overtaken iPhone in the US market for the first time, while worldwide, sales of phones running the Google OS have leapt by a huge 886%. In the second quarter, according to new research from Canalys, Android's US growth was 851% year-on-year, almost as high as the global average, even though it was starting from a higher base in its strongest territory.

The US smartphone market as a whole grew by 41% year-on-year, in unit sales terms, said the researchers, making it the largest base for the open OS handsets in the world. Within that, Android devices accounted for 34% of sales, overtaking RIM and Apple for the top spots. Canalys particularly singled out Verizon's aggressive promotion of its Droid range, the latest flagships being the HTC Incredible and Motorola Droid X. With 14.7m units sold, RIM was still the biggest individual vendor, with 32% share, ahead of Apple on 21.7% and HTC on 14.4%, combining Android and Windows Mobile sales.

Android also did well in China, which has become the world's second largest smartphone country. Nokia leads that market by a huge margin, with its Symbian handsets having 77% share, but it is followed by Android, which shipped almost 475,000 units in the country during Q2 from almost a standing start. Motorola and Samsung benefited most, says Canalys, with 4.7% and 4.1% share respectively. Total shipments were 6.9m.

Worldwide, shipments of smartphones were up by 64% in the second quarter as the devices reached down to the mass market and became a steadily larger percentage of the total handset base.

"Expect to see smartphones accounting for a growing proportion of the wider mobile phone market as they become increasingly affordable to more customers," Canalys senior analyst Pete Cunningham said in a statement. "By 2013, smartphones will grow to represent over 27% of shipments worldwide, with the proportion in some developed markets in western Europe surpassing 60%, and 48% in north America."

Another survey, from Nielsen, also showed Android overtaking Apple in the strongest market for both systems (because of Nokia's virtual no-show). New smartphone subscribers choosing Android handsets accounted for 27% of the US total in Q2, said the firm, compared to 23% for Apple. However, iPhone users are more loyal - 89% of owners would stick with the brand for their next purchase, says Nielsen, compared to 71% for Android. While this study credits RIM with 33% smartphone share in the US, about half of BlackBerry owners want to move to Android or Apple when they upgrade, putting even more pressure on the imminent BlackBerry 6.0 release.

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